Villa G, Bergen

The Villa G is a little slice of the Hamptons on the North Sea, a white wood-clad structure that manages to be both sculptural and hard-edged, rising up above the sand dunes and scrubs of Hjellestad, just outside Bergen.

Canadian architect Todd Saunders has managed to combine traditional local building materials like wooden cladding with a modernist edge, ensuring the new villa stands apart from its rather more ersatz neighbours. Saunders thanks his progressive clients for the end result. They might have 'simply wanted a modern house that matched the needs of their family', but they were more than willing to go out on an aesthetic limb. 'The client has a acute interest in architecture,' the Bergen-based architect recalls, 'he challenged us the whole time, but never got in the way of our design process.'

From the outside, Villa G is an elegant exercise in sculptural massing. The flat-roofed house is distinguished by expanses of first floor glazing, offering spectacular views across the dunes. With a family room, play area and three children's bedrooms located on the ground floor, the airy first floor is given over to a kitchen and sitting room, as well as a master suite. A terrace surrounds this living area, with an external stair leading down to the garden.

The house is a happy blend of the high tech and the traditional, with frameless glass walls serving as room dividers in the master bedroom and balustrades for the internal staircase, combined with randomly patterned wooden cladding on the exterior. The staircase itself is formed from a solid piece of folded galvanised steel; weighing nearly 1 tonne, it had to be craned into the house through the rooflight.

The large windows bring the rapidly shifting light into the heart of the living spaces, while the client has specified bold pieces of furniture and colourful modern art to counter the white walls and oak floors. The client's meticulously detailed specifications include a precise quantity of closet and storage space - to reduce visual clutter - as well as a seamlessly neat 8 metre long kitchen by Kvikk and a centrally controlled electrical system.

This is a windy spot, and Villa G is sited so as to enclose the external terrace and create a sheltered outdoor space, maximising any available sunlight. It's also generously sized, and the downstairs play area is 'big enough to play team sports', and comes with its own climbing wall. In contrast, the parents' space is described as a 'sanctuary' away from the noise. Calm, restful and light-filled, Villa G is an object lesson in refined contemporary design, a self-contained house that enhances its setting and gives the occupants exactly the type of space they want.



































CREDITS

Website
http://www.saunders.no

Telephone
47.55 36 85 06

Lac Superieur Residence, Mont-Tremblant, Canada

Text by Tuija Seipell



The boxy and containery appearance of residential buildings currently attracting accolades and attention is starting to get boring. However, simplicity, clarity and openness are qualities that continue to appeal.


While this is yet another house of stacked boxes, we cannot help but admire the vacation residence clinging dramatically to the sloping hill up in the trees of the Laurentian mountains of Quebec, Canada.


Locals, used to a more traditional ski chalet in this popular ski resort area, refer to the building as the cube, a name choice requiring no imagination. When the Montreal-based architectural firm Saucier + Perrotte won the Canadian Architect magazine’s Award of Excellence for this project in 2004, the magazine called the entry the Lac Superieur Residence in Lac Superieur, Mont-Tremblant.

Whatever the moniker, the house stuns with its elegant lines, stylish use of materials and lack of unnecessary distractions.

As it should be, the building’s real redeeming features reveal themselves inside. The views from the floor-to-ceiling windows provide all the visual stimulus you’ll need, and at the same time, demand a streamlined approach to everything else in the interior.

The boxy-cubey theme continues inside as do the color scheme and the lack of distracting materials. The residence is divided into three functional areas— sleeping quarters on the top floor, middle and entry floor for living and the lowest level for play.

Although the building looks like a disorganized corner of a stylish container-port it exudes a solitary, silent grace that allows the distinctive, four seasons of the mountain to provide the main attraction.

The building meets the criteria for a log cabin as described in the area’s design guidelines for recreational development yet, fortunately, fails to resemble a Tyrolean mini castle.